The present disclosure relates to three-dimensional (3D) semiconductor devices and methods of manufacturing the 3D semiconductor devices.
Semiconductor devices have been highly integrated to provide excellent performance and low manufacturing costs. The integration density of semiconductor devices may affect a manufacturing cost of the semiconductor devices, and thus highly integrated semiconductor devices may be beneficial in terms of a manufacturing cost of the semiconductor devices. The integration density of conventional two-dimensional (2D) or planar semiconductor devices may be determined by an area that a unit memory cell occupies. Therefore, the integration density of the conventional 2D semiconductor devices may be affected by a technique of forming fine patterns. However, since expensive apparatuses may be used to form fine patterns, the integration density of 2D semiconductor devices may be limited. Thus, three-dimensional (3D) semiconductor memory devices have been developed to further increase the integration density of semiconductor devices. 3D semiconductor memory devices may include memory cells that are three-dimensionally arranged.